Since March 7, when Frostburg State upset then-No. 16 Washington College, 14-9, the Bobcats have received votes in the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association poll but not cracked the top 20.
And despite a 10-0 record, the team is still on the outside looking in. But coach Tommy Pearce did not express any bitterness when asked about what could be perceived as a snub.
"I think initially that Washington College win was great, but they're not having their best season," Pearce said Thursday of the Shoremen, who after reaching the NCAA Division III tournament semifinals last spring are 3-5 this season. "So I think the guys that are doing the polls — and I'm on that poll committee, too — that win doesn't mean as much now as it does when we got it, unfortunately. I think McDaniel's a good team, and that was a great win for us, but I think a lot of people are looking at other teams that are playing a little bit of a tougher schedule, and even if they have a bad loss or two, they have a couple wins that maybe look better than ours.
"That's just the way the poll goes. In our next seven games, we've got five games that are really, really tough games for us. Everybody that made the [Capital Athletic Conference] tournament last year, we still have to play. So there's plenty of opportunity left for us to state our case."
Pearce said he is trying to strengthen the program's 2016 schedule, but noted that adding opponents is not as easy as one might think.
"Take our conference, for example," he said. "They added Frostburg and Southern Virginia and Christopher Newport. So Salisbury and St. Mary's and those guys had three games on their schedules they had to cut. In the [Old Dominion Athletic Conference], they added Randolph College and they added Shenandoah. So Lynchburg and Roanoke and [Washington and Lee] had probably two long-standing rivalry games they had to cut from their schedules. Teams had to eliminate games in the past five or six years. So Salisbury and W&L and Lynchburg and Roanoke, they don't have openings on their schedules. They had to cut games as it was. So I think it's really, really hard to get on teams' schedules these days. We're trying, but people say, 'We've been playing this team for 20 years. We're going to keep it.' "
The Bobcats, tied with No. 12 Salisbury for the CAC lead with 2-0 league marks, can further polish their resume with a win Saturday against Christopher Newport, which also has been getting votes in the USILA poll. But Pearce said getting ranked is not a big priority to him.
"For us, our goals are to try to win the conference and try to go to the NCAA tournament," he said. "The rankings help you a little bit as far as where you stand, but being in the top 20 right now doesn't mean we make the NCAA tournament or win the conference later. If we were in the top 20 now and lose three of the seven games [remaining], being in the top 20 didn't really mean a whole lot."